Kris Kuksi: Beauty in the Macabre

(Above) Saravati Destroyer
72” w 33” h x 12” d
Mixed Media Assemblage
2009
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(Above) Saravati Destroyer (detail)Click on image for larger view

(Above) Saravati Destroyer (detail)
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(Above) Saravati Destroyer (detail)
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(Above) Plague Parade: Opus 1
38” h x 13” w 29” d
Mixed Media Assemblage
2007 Click on image for larger view

(Above) Churchtank Type 6.6F with Mine RollersMixed Media
9.75” h x 4.25” w x 14” L Click on image for larger view

(Above) Churchtank Type One
Mixed Media, 11” x 5” x 11”, 2003Click on image for larger view
(Above) Caravan Assault Apparatus
Mixed Media Assemblage, 39” x 28”, 2008
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(Above) Afterworld Transporter
Mixed Media Assemblage, 26” x 12”, 2008
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BORN MARCH 2, 1973 IN SPRINGFIELD, MISSOURI AND GROWING UP IN NEIGHBORING KANSAS, Kris spent his youth in rural seclusion and isolation along with a blue-collar, working mother, two much-older brothers and an absent father. Open country, sparse trees, and alcoholic stepfather, perhaps paved the way for an individual saturated in imagination and introversion. His fascination with the unusual lent to his macabre art later in life. The grotesque to him, as it seemed, was beautiful.

Reaching adulthood his art blossomed and created a breakthrough of personal freedom from the negative environment experienced during his youth. He soon discovered his distaste for the typical American life and pop culture, feeling that he has always belonged to the ‘Old World’. Yet, Kris’ work is about a new wilderness, refined and elevated, visualized as a cultivation emerging from the corrupt and demoralized fall of modern-day society. A place where new beginnings, new wars, new philosophies, and new endings exist. In personal reflection, he feels that in the world today much of mankind is oftentimes frivolous and fragile, being driven primarily by greed and materialism. He hopes that his art exposes the fallacies of Man, unveiling a new level of awareness to the viewer.

ACCIDENTAL MYSTERIES interviewed Kris about his art, digging into the psyche of this incredible artist whose art is entirely relevant for these troubled days.

AM: Hey Kris! From the moment I saw your work, I knew I was looking at a special artist—one that you see oh, once every hundred years or so. I am serious. You’re more than an artist and I want to know more about you.

So, let me ask: do you have any kind of formal art education after high school?

KK: Yes, I did, from a small mid-western college in Hays, Kansas called Fort Hays State University. It was not a major art school but from what I came out of from high school, I was at least lucky enough to go to college. The program wasn’t strict by any means so I just grew at my own pace, and I probably would have wound up the same had I been on an island in the Pacific.
AM: OK, I’d like to follow with this basic philosophical question: do you believe in any higher power in the universe, or do you feel that mankind is simply a brilliant but failed organism heading to his eventual and ultimate destruction?
KK: Ha! That is a very good question and I’d have to say that I really have a lot of doubt that man will follow through in saving the planet and himself from peril. I’m not so sure about a higher power. Maybe it is just a situation where humans need to come up with the idea that something has to be greater than them to help explain things. I just wonder if humans are smart enough to let reason rule and give up religious fanaticism and political differences. I suppose we might go down in history as the dinosaurs did and, eventually, be engulfed by the next ice age or cataclysmic event even if we did find a way to save the ecology and balance of the planet.

AM: I get from your work the collision of good and evil, the trappings of war, lost technologies, monuments to lost causes and failed leaders—all rendered in excruciatingly three-dimensional detail. Tell me more about this, please?

KK: To continue with what you have already noted, I believe time becomes blended together as history consistently repeats itself. Countries rise and fall, wars are fought and won or lost, human behavior lives through emotions and passion over and over again. One thing humans can do is to learn from history, however, from what I see in what humans are doing today, is that they are more focused on their current state of the moment and seek answers through their emotional reactions rather than logic and knowledge as example from the past. There are very few visionaries that are leading us to a point of transformation. And so the story goes, the rise and fall of hero’s and nations and religions, etc., etc.
AM: It looks as if you embed found objects in your pieces and yet other parts appear to be individually sculpted? What is your sculpting material?

KK: Just like what you said, mostly found objects but nearly everything is manipulated in some way. A thick filler sort of paste is use to add more form that isn’t provided in an object and is also used to help blend in gaps between forms.

AM: Tell me, what sorts of things do you collect apart from what you use in your work?

KK: I’m not really a fanatical collector for the sake of collecting. But I do randomly collect odd things such as a bird fetuses, old wooden legs, art books, music, movies and art from a few fellow artist friends.
AM: Bird fetuses? Old wooden legs? Gee… that’s boring—everybody collects those. (Just kidding!) Finally, who— or what inspires you, Kris?

KK: The Baroque, classical art, Art Nouveau, Bosch, Giger, design, symmetry, space travel, war, nature, architecture, death, life, passion, love, hate, emotions, and peace.
AM: Kris, thanks so much for taking the time to let us know more about you and your art. I’m a huge fan. Good luck with everything.

Take Another Look at Cigar Box Lids

An Accidental Mysteries “Blast from the Past,” December 16, 2008.


THANK GOD FOR OTHER PEOPLE’S COLLECTIONS, because I don’t have the money, space or time to collect it all. I do have the desire to collect it all, but left brain (and wife) says stop. I found a collector, Robert Madison, who apparently loves the beauty, variety and history of cigar box lids. His collection is enormous.

I am reminded of the cigar box that Tatum O’Neal (as “Addie”) carried in the movie Paper Moon. It was Cremo brand. It was the perfect metaphor for those few things she held dear to her life. She carried it—held it tight everywhere she went. As a kid, I loved cigar boxes. I guess I still do. Cigar boxes are the perfect size for kid stuff—baseball cards, crayons, coins, secrets—whatever. Cigar boxes are kid-sized—the way they open is lovely and inviting. And as far as design, they always look so regal and important. On the lid was usually an illustration or name of some mysterious, important person, almost always with a strange non-Anglo name. And, because the boxes were so substantial, people saved them more so than not. How many garages or workshops in the United States still have a cigar box to hold nails, screws and other flotsam from their projects? Cigar boxes last.

The examples I was drawn to from Robert’s substantial collection are the ones that have the tax labels applied along the side and over the lid. Is there anything sexier than breaking an official seal? I mean really! The samples I share with you today remind me of early 20th century collage. The labels, haphazardly applied compared to the perfection and order of the lid, interfere with and force themselves into the carefully planned cigar box “landscape.” That is what I love the most. The tax labels were never designed to work with the cigar box. They were there to serve an official function—like a price sticker or a bar code on a product today. Besides that, I am reminded of something else—the whole role that cigar bands and box labels did throughout the 20th century to inspire artists. One has only to look at the early collage art of Kurt Schwitters, Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Joseph Cornell and others to see the influences. And most recently, the discovery of the work of Felipe Jesus Consalvos, a self-taught artist who worked in the first half of the 20th century.

Consalvos worked in a cigar factory and apparently had plenty of raw material from his work to use (cigar band papers). Influenced by the boxes themselves, he utilized a similar visual “framing and border” devices he saw everyday at his job. Of course, all of these artists, trained or self-taught, pushed their “cigar box and cigar band” influences much farther. Consalvos used real cut-up dollar bills, magazine photographs, old wedding photos and all kinds of ephemera to create his surreal, fantastic work.

Also, be sure and check out the faux wood grain on some of examples above— a device the surrealists used often.

Surrealist Film From 1923

Le Retour A La Raison (The Return to Reason) is a short black and white film by Man Ray from 1923. The music was composed and performed by Donald Sosin. This is really an intriguing film—and shows the joy of using a new medium in an entirely different way. Imagine, using nails, odd things hanging from strings, unrelated clips spliced together and other such things put together as a single artistic statement. Sure, it’s naive and awkward to our eyes today. But in 1923, this was new stuff—raw, cutting edge artistic experimentation.

The “Dark Room” Is In Use

(Above) Come on in.
(Above) Photographer Scott Ferguson and unidentified friend.
Above: The Dark Room is cultivating a new audience of young art directors, designers and photographers.


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(Above) This scene, with the last spike of sun just before the sky turned black, was on-screen for exactly 3 seconds. I was lucky.
(Above) Definitely click on the above pic.
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Above: The house is falling.

IT’S ALMOST 1:30 am AND I AM FALLING ASLEEP, but tonight my wife and I watched The Wizard of Oz (1939) in it’s entirety to the music of Pink Floyd’s 1973 album, The Dark Side of the Moon.

It was at FK Photo, run by Mark Katzman and Scott Ferguson. The Dark Room is a part of FK Studio, a large party room that is beautifully designed—and the ultimate place to get to know folks in the industry. Why, I even met a beautiful young woman who claimed to be a descendant of Robert E. Lee? Wow. I was seriously impressed. I had to sit down. The movie was about to start.

Anyhoo, the film was projected at least 20 feet across in Blu Ray, Hi-Def. The quality was AMAZING. Fifteen feet in front of me the quality was just about like a giant print. Except it was moving. I knew I was seeing something special.

Because the image was Blu Ray Hi Def, I started shooting images right off the wall with my digital camera. I was just blown away by the incredible sound and images and the detail I had NEVER seen in this film before. After all, I remember seeing the film for the first time it was shown on color TV! That was analog euphoria. This was hi-def euphoria.

Some of these pics—to me—very much mimic the haphazard style of many snapshots I like. Additionally, what I like is the way these pics are so familar, but way darker. And even scarier than I remember.

If you have seen the Pink Floyd music and video—let me know what you think. Was this an accident, or an intentional Pink Floyd mind freak? I say it is an accident— that we’re locking onto the occasional coincidence—forgetting all the places it doesn’t match.

The Dark Room is a private room, a part of FK Photo in St. Louis. FK Studio can be reached at 314.241.3811.

Later.